


Freedom to Fly.

by BGee93



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Akaashi Week, Akaashi Week 2018, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Veterinarians, Angst, Blood and Injury, Blood is not descriptive just mentioned, Bokuaka - Freeform, Fluff and Angst, Food, I'm Sorry, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mentioned Kuroo Family, Mentioned Sawamura Daichi, Mentions of Slight Abuse, Mentions of Violence, Not Beta Read, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Owl Bokuto Koutarou, Owls, Panther Kuroo, Shapeshifting, Shipping, Supernatural Elements, Veterinary Clinic, broships - Freeform, cop daichi, human akaashi, i die with honor and spelling mistakes, still love that tag, yet - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 01:44:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14533977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BGee93/pseuds/BGee93
Summary: Okay so I didn't have enough time to do all of Akaashi Week 2018 as individual fics, so I combined them all into a short story! What can go wrong right? This should only be 3 chapters.Akaashi is woken up at a god awful hour by his best friend and coworker Kuroo stating there's an emergency case he needs help with. Upon arriving at the Clinic Akaashi soon sees why his friend called him in and exactly why it was such and emergency.Prompts:Day 1: Owl.Day 2: Food.Day 3: Angst.Day 4: Age Swap.Day 5: AU.Day 6: Shipping.Day 7: Bokuaka.





	Freedom to Fly.

He carded his fingers through greasy, bedhead mussed hair for what felt like the millionth time that morning as a deep sigh escaped through his slightly chapped lips. The craving for a Black coffee, preferably with an espresso shot or Two (more often than not with Two), holding strong since the unwanted phone call two hours prior. Using the back of his hand Akaashi itched at his nose as he slammed his car door shut behind him, clicking the lock button until he heard the ‘beep beep’ of it locking. The noise of it cut through the silence of the still and dark air, seeming to echo off the shadows.

Rubble crunched under his Converse as he finally started shuffling ever so slowly and lazily towards the Rehabilitation Staff Entrance doorway. It was chillier outside than he’d expected, or noticed for that matter since interrupted sleep seemed to dull the nip on his skin as he’d left his home, so his attire of old, worn sweats and a flimsy Tee was entire inappropriate. A shudder ran through his body and the sudden action formed goosebumps over his exposed arms. His hands shot up to rub against the assulted flesh, keys jingling with each up and down movement of his hands, calluses left over from his Volleyball days sliding roughly. He mentally egged himself on as he quickened his pace towards the door fractionally, he was halfway across the parking lot now and he cursed out his boss for upholding the rule that staff parking was the furthest from the building. No matter what time of the day or night it is.

To occupy his mind from the biting breeze he instead focused on the fluorescent lighting guiding his way. The street lights were an ugly, semi eerie, Orange glow that reminded him more of Halloween decor lighting than a street light. The ones on the building were a more updated variety, blinding white glare the if you stared into them for a few seconds you’d see nothing but black spots for several minutes. The two colors and the tones they cast gave off odd, nightmare looking shadows across the painted asphalt. He counted the dull clunks of his feet as he stomped past the painted lines and obscure shadows.

Finally he was pulling out his staff card and running it through the device that locks the doors. There was a cringingly loud buzz before a thunk as the lock smacked open. Grabbin the freezing cold handle Akaashi quickly pushed inside and allowed the door to heavily close behind him. There was another thunk, much louder in the tight hallway, as it shut. The radiating heat hit against his bare skin making him shudder at the sudden change in temperature but he welcomed the heavy heat, rubbing his hands up and down his chilled and goosebump infested arms. The air was thick with disinfectant, various animal pen scents and he could hear the distant ‘ _hoos_ ’ and ‘ _kroos_ ’ from the owl room not too far down the hall. This brought a small and warm smile to his chapped lips. Owls always were his favorite.

The building was long past closed so it was barely lit, dimmed down to one of the lowest settings so you could still see in front of you but it allowed the daytime animals to sleep peacefully. Halfway down the hall was the examination room and Akaashi could see the lights were completely on, meaning that’s where Kuroo currently was and he didn’t have to go hunting the pain-in-the-ass down which would waste even more of his time. Making a beeline for the room Akaashi quickened his steps.

He walked into the bright and blinding room, squinting his eyes against the sudden change in lighting. Once his vision cleared Akaashi swept them over the room until they landed on the person he was looking for. 

Kuroo was standing by one of the small examination tables, hunched over and softly mumbling to something as he worked. His gloved hands moving to whatever animal was in front if him and back to the bandages beside him. When he’d called Akaashi less than an hour ago he’d simply said that he needed a more expert opinion on an emergency case that had been rushed to the center before briskly hanging up. To have him call Akaashi after hours it was either a lost cause case or it had to do with a badly injured Owl since Owls is where he spent most of his time and research. Pushing his body forward Akaashi walked straight towards the tall, lanky yet toned man in front of him. Kuroo didn’t turn to look at him, simply kept going with his task at hand, but hummed a greeting when he heard the footsteps coming up behind him.

Grabbing a set of gloves from the box on the tray next to Kuroo, Akaashi glanced around his side to see what he would be dealing with. The sight made his breath hitch. Before his eyes was what he guessed was a very injured Great Horned Owl if the extremely large, round golden eyes and sheer size of it. What threw him off from the deduction was that it’s coloring was Black and Grey, and while that is not unusual in the least, it was odd to have it in less of a randomized pattern and more of what could be called a stripe pattern. An abnormality like that usually hints at an animal shifter, but they were pretty rare in this area now. Most having moved away after it became law to Geo-tag and record all of them.

That wasn’t what truly shocked Akaashi though. It was the mass amount of blood and injuries to the Owl that shocked him into forgetting to breath until his lungs started to burn uncomfortably. Forcing him to suck in oxygen. Both wings had several smaller cuts that looked deep enough to heal without permanent damage but bleed horribly. One eye remained closed, looking swollen and had a but of what could either be pus from infection or some kind of irritant had been forced into it. The beautiful creature also seemed to be favoring one of it’s legs, continuously shifting to put weight on it before making a deep ‘ _mewling_ ’ sound and shifting back off of it. All of this was just what could be seen, underneath it probably had more injuries waiting to be found.

“A shifter?”

“Not sure,” Akaashi sent Kuroo a questioning glance, arching one of his brows high and widening his usually more slitted eyes. Instead of getting an actual answer the man simply shrugged and moved over to let Akaashi take over the cleaning of its wounds. Without another word Akaashi slowly moved forward, meeting the wide glowing, Golden eye that watched his every move. Usually Owls would watch you with a sharpness and cautious glint in their eyes, this one however seemed more interested instead of scared. Further making him come to the conclusion that this was no ordinary animal.

Akaashi heard shuffling of papers beside him as he reached for a clean square of gauze, the liquid disinfectant lotion and the waiting tweezers, slowly dampening the square and folding it before taking it between the tweezers and reaching for an injured wing. His actions paused when the wing was opened out towards him with pure trust, his mouth popping open before he shut it and leaned in to slowly clean away the blood.

“Okay so the long story short here is the big guy here was found down by the Middle school by a Police Officer doing a routine grounds check. Apparently they’ve been having multiple reports of shifter abuse there after dark. _Man people nowadays are messed up…_ ” Akaashi nodded his agreement at the whispered statement but kept his main focus on the job at hand. His long fingers gently cleaning away the remains of what was clearly not a simple accident. The cuts were too clean, too precise for this to not have happened at the hand of someone who just wanted to inflict pain and suffering. More than likely just because the Owl was a shifter. 

_Sick bastards. Just because they were born with the ability to go from human to animal, not always at will, doesn’t make them any less of a living, breathing person._

“Officer Sawamura, _that’s the cop that found him and yes I, awkwardly I must add, checked the gender_ , immediately brought him here. I, Dr. Kuroo, responded to the case as I was the only one on call. I assessed the injuries and concluded that it was in fact another case of abuse although I was unsure if it was animal or shifter as he has given no indications of being a shifter,” from the way he was talking Akaashi understood that Kuroo must be recording the observations and findings for police record. Their own records were always paperwork based unless it was found to be an education case.

“Kuroo?”

“Yes, Dr. Akaashi?”

“Can you tell me what indications for shifter you have already checked?” more paper shuffling indicated that Kuroo had decided to use the checklist provided even though by now, after Six years of this kind of work, they both had the list memorized to the point that Akaashi actually dreamed about reading off the list once. Out of curiosity he had checked to see how he did when he’d woken up, a case file had been next to the bed, and he only missed Two indications.

“The indications checked are as followed; question and answer (ask the possible shifter a question and see how they respond), physical interaction, response to general conversation-” Akaashi listened as he gently but swiftly worked, no longer feeling tired or chilly. No longer feeling anything really, aside from pure concentration of his task at hand. Between gauze switches he glanced up into the eye watching him with the same bright curiosity as before. Once Kuroo finished going down the list Akaashi asked what the final findings were and once again the hum of Kuroo’s voice filled the air as Akaashi worked.

The whole process took just over Two hours and once he was done Akaashi was more than sure it was a shifter they were dealing with and from Kuroo’s silence on the matter he was also quite convinced of the same fact. An untagged one from the X-ray they had taken to check on the injured leg, which turned out to just be deep bruising. Thankfully there was no lasting damage, even the cuts and eye would heal within a week or Two with proper care. The fact that there had been no tag found was left in silence as they concluded their paperwork and records, leaving the fact out on purpose. 

Kuroo turned off the tape recorder as Akaashi slipped the pages into a folder before passing it over for Kuroo to file it away for later when the Officer would come get it. It was only then that they looked at each other, then to the now sleeping Owl (who was snoring ever so lightly), and back to each other again.

“He’s not tagged,” Kuroo whispered it so softly that if he hadn’t been standing next to Akaashi the shorter one wouldn’t have been able to hear it at all.

“I know,” Akaashi spoke just as softly, fear of someone overhearing them high in his mind. The thought churning his stomach over and over with nausea.

“He’s illegal here,”

“I know,”

“What are we gonna do Keiji?”

“I… I don’t know Tetsu. But we can’t hand him over in his condition. There’s no way they will approve of him having health care of _any_ kind, especially if he doesn’t shift back to a person and explain himself,”

“Maybe… Maybe he’s, uh, not a shifter?”

“Tetsu, _look_ at him. _Look_ at our findings altogether. To anyone untrained it’s not clear but we’ve been doing this for years,” Kuroo sighed deep and heavy, from the bottom of his lungs, as he raked a hand over his face. Akaashi soon followed with his own heaving sigh, breathing in the disgusting mix of disinfectant and heavily metallic tasting oxygen. 

“I know, the scent he gave off after getting comfortable around you made it obvious. He hid it well from me, guess I’m untrustworthy,” he gave a short, bark of a laugh as he moved his hands from his face and up into his hair, not caring that created even more bedhead than usual. 

“Well, you **are** a Panther shifter. I wouldn’t trust you either if I was an Owl. Or any winged shifter for that matter,” he slipped as much sarcasm and sass as he could into his words, hoping to lighten the mood even just the slightest bit. If it was anyone else Akaashi wouldn’t have bothered, then again they wouldn’t be having this discussion if it was anyone else. Unlike their other coworkers Akaashi and Kuroo actually disagreed with the tagging law and if it was anyone else in the room there would be no questioning what would happen to the Great Horned Owl currently sleeping, wrapped up in one of the Centers staff blankets. He would be locked up, tagged against his consent and then there would be a trial to decide his overall fate regarding his future.

All because Ten years ago a bill was passed stating that Shifters were becoming a growing threat to humanity and needed to be monitored and controlled. All of the surrounding areas near the city threw the bill out seeing it as discriminatory and inhumane against any and all Shifters alike. But not here. Akaashi would have left but he couldn’t find it in himself to leave his home. Then he couldn’t leave Kuroo once he found out his best friend was a Panther Shifter. 

Kuroo had been tagged and logged against his will. He’d tried to escape the city limits before they’d caught up to him, trying to make it to his grandparents home, but his own parents had turned him in. Kuroo was one of the rare cases of Shifters born into a human dominated family, meaning he was the only surviving one out of his whole known family and his parents were not accepting of it. His grandparents adore him though so at least he has them. The main problem being that now that he was tagged and his every move is watched he can no longer leave the city, his grandparents too old to travel. They video chat thanks to Akaashi taking a weekend to go down and show them how Skype works but it’s not the same as physically seeing the ones you love and who love you.

Akaashi was dragged out of his thoughts at the low chuckle coming from Kuroo. His small attempt at trying to ease up the heaviness of the room seemed to have worked. For now. Looking up he met s warming gaze of warmed honey.

“You’re such a dork sometimes Keiji,”

“Takes one to know one!” Kuroo faked a shocked and offended expression, jaw dropping and eyes widening as he laid a hand upon his chest. Just over his heart.

“I’ll have you know, I am _never_ a dork, the proper terms are Nerd or Geek. I accept both,” 

“Mhmm,” Kuroo opened his mouth to reply but a small _mewling_ drew both of their attention back to their patient. He was awake now and watching them through his good eye, which wasn’t fully open telling Akaashi he wasn’t fully awakened yet. The delicate lightness in the air popped bringing back the previous thoughts and fears. But then Akaashi got an idea. One that could end very very badly. He bit his bottom lip in between his teeth, grinding against the soft flesh painfully.

 _It could end our careers. No, my career. I’ll never let Kuroo get_ ”-ji” _involved in this. But, can it work? I mean, it is possible. He’s untagged and_ ”Keij-” my place isn’t too far away from the city limits. The paperwork in classified as inconclusive so if I can figure”Keiji!” _out a way to fake the documents just enough to make it seem like we, no I, discovered him to be a regular Owl…_

“Earth to Keiji!” his head snapped towards Kuroo to find his friend staring at him, wide eyed and worried.

“Huh?”

“You were spacing,”

“Oh, sorry. Key Kuroo?”

“What?”

“What’s the protocol on bringing an inconclusive case home with you?”

“The paperwork? You can just take it. You’re a senior Vet here and your name is on the paperwork,”

“No, not the paperwork,” Kuroo tilted his head to the side and scrunched his nose and forehead up in confusion as his eyes met Akaashi’s in a dead stare. He waited patiently for the words to really sink in and take hold in Kuroo’s mind. It didn’t take all that long before his Honey colored eyes widened and his jaw went a little slack, drawing in a shaky breath.

“Keiji-”

“Don’t question it, just tell me what the protocol is. I forget,”

“Because it hasn’t been done in years,”

“Well, do you know it or do I go look it up before the boss gets here?” Kuroo wanted to argue. He wanted to argue and question and possibly even yell because he knew that look in Keiji’s eyes. His friends face and voice was calm and low, event collected. But his eyes shone with glints of fear and decision, determination and uncertainty. But he held his tongue and left the room, closing the door behind him with a soft thud. Once in the dimmed hallway he leaned his full weight and back into the closed door, hand gripping the cool door knob tightly as he laid his head against the window. Focusing on breathing in and out Kuroo tried to collect his own thoughts through the hammering of his heart in his ears.

Inside the room Akaashi slowly moved around with shaky legs and hands that seemed to have a mind of their own. He grabbed one of the field bags from the closet across the room and started filling it with various aid products he would need. Gauze, disinfectant for the cuts and to flush the eye, Two pairs of tweezers of different sizes. Just a few things he didn’t already have at home in his personal kit. He also added in items like open ended syringes in case he would need to hand feed the Owl, not that there was any indication it couldn’t feed itself or that once in Akaashi’s home he wouldn’t shift, but it was better to be prepared. He could hear Kuroo shuffling around just out the door but he gave him his space, not pushing the issue.

Once he zipped the bag shut Akaashi walked over and set it next to the examination table, the Owl now fully awake and staring once again with utter curiosity. Their gazes met as Akaashi leaned against the cold surface, bringing his face close to the Owls.

“Look, I’m gonna be honest with you and I’d appreciate it if you’d acknowledge my words for once today,” he waited but the Owl remained still and silent, Golden eyes now burning in a way Akaashi didn’t quite understand but he pushed on.

“I _know_ you’re an Owl Shifter and so does Kuroo. We also know you’re untagged and in this city that is _illegal_ ,” a flash of fear ran through the Owl and it actually twitched.

“Calm down, we’re the only ones who know. The officer who brought you in isn’t trained to tell the difference between an animal and a Shifter, that’s where we come in,” that seemed to calm him again but the Owl still shifted a bit in the blanket. A corner fell away and Akaashi gently pushed it back into place around its body.

“Now, here’s the part that is, well, even more illegal and can go very _very_ wrong if you don’t help me out. I will bring you home and claim to be nursing you there. Our notes claim the initial findings of your status is inconclusive, as I’m sure you overheard, so I will have to do daily reports about you. But I’ll be lying little by little to prove that you’re _not_ a Shifter,” still no official recognition of his words but he had the Owl’s unwavering attention. So Akaashi figured it was better than nothing at all.

“What I need _you_ to do is trust me as I’m going to be trusting you. Once in my home you will have to stay there and stay quiet. People will need to believe that I am simply caring for an Owl and nothing more. If you raise suspicion or out yourself _both_ of us are royally screwed. Now, tell me if you understand,” Kuroo had come back inside the room, the quiet clicks of the door opening and closing not interrupting the one sided conversation in the least. Akaashi needed the Owl to understand the gravity of the situation. Several minutes ticked away as both men stared at the Owl, it stared at only Akaashi without blinking. Then it gave them both a sign that would seal their fates.

_Hroo-hoo-hoo_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Leave a kudos/Comment and subscribe if you enjoy the story so far! <3
> 
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